Posted
by
simoniker
on Monday October 06, 2003 @05:22PM
from the wash-your-hands-first dept.

rocketjam writes "An article at The Register, authored by Scott Granneman of SecurityFocus, examines the conventional wisdom that if Linux or Mac OS X were as popular as Windows, there would be just as many viruses written for those platforms. Mr. Granneman bluntly says this is wrong, then proceeds to detail the fundamental differences between those OS's and Windows which make Windows an easy and inviting target for virus-writers, as opposed to the Unix-based platforms."

Personally, I consider viruses, worms and trojans to all fall into the same genus. The differences between the three aren't too important and blurry anyways. They are all hostile code that can affect any system.

a rootkit isn't even marginally similar to the others in that rootkits are ran deliberately by a local assailant. They don't propogate by any means and you are never tricked into running them. They really have nothing to do with this topic.

a trojan horse is code you run on your computer that doesn't do what you thought it did. In my opinion, these are mostly user stupidity.

a virus is code being injected into a program you run normally. How it gets there is not really part of 'viral activity'. Technically, we have very few virii left these days, most fall into the trojan horse category. Virii were especially popular back in the days of DOS, when modifying a file

that some software you talk about unfortunately sucks, and should be pressured (by voting with dollars, or by complaining) to be fixed. Blaming OS is not the solution. Said software would run improperly on any system that has a security subsystem.

PS. as much as it is a PITA for me to run as non admin too, I do get by. Here's two pieces of advice:

Shift right clicking on an executable will allow you to "Run As...". You can't complain about that because i

Personally, I consider viruses, worms and trojans to all fall into the same genus. The differences between the three aren't too important and blurry anyways. They are all hostile code that can affect any system.

Hrm. That sounds a little like saying that it's not important for the lay public to know the differences between real (biological) viruses and bacteria--they're both hostile organisms that make us sick, right?

All well and good until you have people with rhinoviruses going to the doctor and deman

You have been socially engineered by Microsoft to think that such things as one-click installs are necesarry and desirable. You have been brainwashed to believe that "if it's not as easy as possible, then it is too hard."

Even if you think that one-click installs are necesarry, take a look at MacOS. It allows for one-click installs, but if you the program is going to change OS code/settings, then you are warned about it and prompted for a password (a la sudo.) Of course the MS-programming-kernel that used to be your brain will probably respond that having to put in a password makes the OS "broken"...

Imagine some software engineer saying "hey you know what would make things really easy for our users, if we could remotely take control of their computers, install patches/extensions, and optimize some of their hardware settings." There you go. That could make installing/setting up/maintaining complex software so much easier, right? Hey there are some really obvious security implications, but eaiser is always better right?

You have been socially engineered by Microsoft to think that such things as one-click installs are necesarry and desirable.

No, consumer feedback from years of user research has socially engineered Microsoft into believing it is necessary and desirable, because this is EXACTLY what people want.

Have you even tried running Windows post-NT without administrator privilegs, and how it also doesn't let you change things without an administrator password? Your post was just endless FUD spawned from a chip on yo

Oh wait they did do that. How come I don't hear sudden stories about massive car thefts with remote devices that can do what the manufacturer does? Or cars that won't start because they are receiving an incorrect kill signal? Oh yeah, because in the effort to make things easier car companies took the time to make them secure.

[scoff!]
You think the reason car thieves haven't taken advantage of weaknesses in remote unlock systems is because they're so well designed? Think again, man. The reason no one's making black-market code-grabbers for remote door lock systems is because the slim-jim class of opening tools still work. There's no reason to attempt to exploit a complicated electronic system on the front door when the back door is secured with a plastic padlock labeled "do not cut off this padlock"! If you ask me, Windows is just like cars. They add on all sorts of fancy things but don't fix the security holes that are already there.

You on the other hand have been socially engineered by Linux zealots to think that people who don't want to spend 38 consecutive hours to get their system up and working are idiots.

Time to install RH 9.0 Linux with Apache, SQL and development tools and patch to date: 3 hrs. Time to install Windows 2K Server + IIS, MS-SQL Server and IIS and patch up to date. One day minimum and the process of patching isn't so automated (lots of separate downloads).

broken? how so? Preventing users from installing stuff is extremely useful on a multiuser system. I've seen way too many networked windows boxes with just about every piece of spyware, adware and other useless crap installed on it to believe that letting the average user install anything they want is a good thing. Just because users want to be able to install anything on their computer with no safeguards doesn't mean it's a good idea. The current system isn't broken, it was put there to prevent exactly what

I disagree. I am familiar with higher-education institutions that have had their netblocks scanned, then the linux boxes matching certain criteria were examined and attacked based on known exploits. There was no social engineering required, nor were they horribly insecure...there's still a heck of a lot of people using apache 1.3.x without all the patches, and if a script kiddie can compromise your system at that point, he's won half the battle. From there it is a trivial joke for them to get and execut

there would be just as many viruses written for those platforms
Probably, there would be as many viruses written, or more, but the effect of the viruses would have been different. As to whether the effects would have been not as bad, equal or worse is difficult to answer.

That article has all the typical anti-linux trolls rolled into one, along with several new ones. For example to those who don't feel like reading it, he compares linux users to terrorists and communists all in the same article. He also blames the majority of viruses and malicious hackers on linux, and p2p software theft as something caused by the linux community. Truly an overdramatized troll.

That article may just be the sanest thing I have ever read out of this whole sorry mess.

An article that links Windows exploits and theft of code as a reflection of Open Source is the sanest thing you've read about this incident? What other black-helicopters-from-Open-Source-world stories have you been reading?

The author of this article does not understand the culture nor history of what he criticizes. Or he understands it well enough to know what buttons to push.

It was a really good bit of writing until it started going out on a limb

I think that was the first sentence:

On one level, blaming Microsoft for the virus attacks is much like blaming the engineers of the World Trade Center for 911.

It could be analogous to blaming the engineers if they had painted a big target on sensitive areas of the building, and provided planes a lighted approach for hitting them.

But, it gets even better:

Why put all the blame the attacked, and spare the attacker? If someone shoots you, do the police arrest you for not wearing a Kevlar vest? No, they go after the people with the gun.

When are you notified that you may need a kevlar vest? Again, this would be a more fitting analogy if the person not wearing a vest was in, say.. Iraq 8 months ago and had a US Army emblem stitched on their uniform. If you buy software, I think it's a reasonable expectation that it won't be broken due to negligence. If I purchased a car, I'd be pretty pissed off if I found out the company made it very easy to open it without my keyless entry fob. That's a much more fitting analogy. Analogies suck to argue with, so lets just keep on the real subject:

It should come as very little surprise that when you have a culture that demonizes Microsoft, largely because they're more successful with Joe Sixpack than your side, that some will go beyond that.

Yes, this is why we demonize Microsoft. Not because they violate HTTP, SSL, CSS, and countless other standards. Not because they violate business laws, and are sued for it. We demonize them because they attract idiots better than us. I'm glad he cleared that up for me, because I was wondering why I didn't run Windows. It's not just my surprise, Ed has one too:

It should come as very little surprise that when you have a culture that justifies, even glorifies theft from the big guy, that people start taking from the smaller fry.

I suppose I'm part of the culture, and I don't glorify nor justify. In fact, I say it's wrong. So do a lot of people. So, again, half-baked claims with no factual backing. Yes, I'm sure several people did say that Half-Life will now have Linux binaries. If any of them said it seriously, I doubt they have the capabilities to build them anyway. Any joke taken out of context can make someone look like a dick. Or a Communist, right Ed?

"From Each According To His Abilities, To Each According To His Needs"
Karl Marx said that, and it fits these extremists and their fellow-travellers to a T. Come to think of it, if you asked regular thieves how the world should be, they'd say pretty much the same thing, too.

I didn't realize that thieves were happy only getting what they need and no more. Perhaps you should ask Microsoft since it's documented that they have stolen a few things. I can definitely see how they take only what they need. Like $40B in cash reserves.

But when we talk about P2P, that's when Communism really rears it's ugly head. Not Capitalism and market dominance nor supply and demand, which is the very cornerstone of capitalist economics:

And what's the replacement [to the RIAA], the better world? It sure isn't better for the artists. Call the RIAA and Company slavemasters, but at least slave owners fed and housed their slaves.

The replacement to the RIAA? I'm not sure, how about CDBaby or the other houses that are opening up? Why are there so many famous artists that loathe the RIAA? How many famous artists have you sat down and talked to about record contracts. I can name one, and he makes more money now touring as a legendary band (from the 60s) than he ever did from his 6 platinum records. Even he wants to get on the internet distribution bandwagon. But,

Further, due to the strong community around Linux, new users will receive education and encouragement in areas such as email security that are currently lacking in the Windows world, which should help to alleviate any concerns on the part of newbies.

Yeah right. I garuntee if my Mom started using Linux all she'd be doing the same things she's doing now. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them check if it's contaminated first...

Some people say that number of virii per platform will be roughly equivalent to that platform's marketshare. They are wrong. Windows is different to the other platforms because:1) On Windows, applications share architecture making cross-contamination easier.2) On other platforms, there are more steps to perform to accomplish simple tasks than on Windows (implying that users really need to work at it to get infected).3) On Windows platforms, most

n the past year? Since NT3.5 (A staple on many corporate desktops for more than a couple of years) the admin/punter divide has been standard.

Which is why I said "any consumer Windows OS". The first NT based OS targeted at consumers (as opposed to businesses) was WinXP.

Yes, a lot of software assumes admin rights when it really has no place doing so (even OpenOffice for Windows requires Admin rights to install!) However, for a similar task under unix, try installing Perl and a bunch of CPAN modules on a

For example, OS X installs the first user as an Administrator (though several tasks require they enter their password as a sort of sudo command - but most users would simply do so without thinking of the consequences).

The last time I installed Red Hat (7.2 I believe), it had you set the root user, then create a new normal user - assuming the user logs in as themselves, and not root, then the protections will work.

I think the best note is "if users act like they should" (which is easier in an office environment than a home one), then virses onto UNIX based systems (GNU/Linux, BSD, or otherwise) won't get very far and will find quick death if spread using the standard "social engineering" ways of the MS Windows world.

The difference between UNIX systems and Windows ones is that there are fewer protections on Windows to prevent System-level commands from being run. On a UNIX box, if I'm signing on as me (non-admin type), then I can feel pretty good about general security. If I'm on a Windows box, I'm going to have to be double cautious with everything that crosses my email or my browser - whether I actively run it or not.

So I'd say he made some fallacies, but overall his point is more correct than the cries of "Well, there are less viruses on GNU/Linux and OS X because nobody runs it! Nyah!"

The reason it asks for a password is that an OS X 'administrator' is not root. It's staff. There is no root account by default. You have to enable that purposely. The point is that if you double click something that looks like a picture file and it asks you for your admin password, you KNOW something is up. On Windows, double click and you're dead. If it doesn't ask and you're running as an Admin, it might wipe out/Applications and ~/, but it can't touch/System or any other user's files. If you run as a regular user, then only ~/ can be hosed.

Sure you can mess up a Windows system easily. I could just as easily compile some code without reading every line of the source and have my entire home directory wiped out, which contains all my settings and documents, you know the important stuff. Every system can be damaged, the extent will vary, but you still need to be careful regardless of the OS you use.

You missed the point. While wiping/home would be 'unfortunate' for you, it reduces the virus' spread.

Since this article is about the spread of virii on popular systems, let's concider for the moment how most people use computers. Most people have one computer to themselves. They will set up an account for themselves, and probably their entire family uses that one account. They store a year's worth of data on it, and then a virus comes along. Now, you are saying, well, it's only limited to the one account

I think Windows systems suffer more from vulnerabilities at the operating system level (possibly because it tried to integrate so many things) than application level (though they do exist). In Unix like environments, it is the opposite. The operating system is generally secure against remote attacks but it is the applications that run on top of the OS that introduce vulnerabilities.

As long as there is software there will be bugs, no matter where it is run.

"As long as there is software there will be bugs, no matter where it is run."

This is very true. All it takes is an inexpicably popular piece of software that has a vulnerability in it. Franky, I don't think it'd be hard for somebody to write an interesting app just to do that. Kazaa ring a bell?

It might make it easier for average users to infect themselves, BUT they won't spread it. Keep in mind, these days, most damage caused by viruses is secondary. SoBig didn't directly damage ANY computers - but it crippled a lot of networks and inboxes because of the huge load of mail it generates.

And that's what, as far as I know, NO ONE would manage to dumb Linux down to be able to do. All of the big virii like SoBig and Blaster rely on Microsoft's boneheaded insistance on cross-linking every program and giving everything full root rights. Did you know there's one theoretical expoit in Windows, thankfully not done yet, in which an MP3 could be given a corrupt header, which points IE to a virus online, and be activated simply on MOUSEOVER? No joke, it's out in MS's security updates archive.

So even if it becomes easier for lusers to infect themselves, the chances of an Internet crippling worm are FAR reduced. (and that's even assuming a few standardized builds; the huge multitude of programs available for Linux create a form of security through obscurity)

If Linux becomes more popular, media
recognition and increasingly "dumbed down"
distros will make it a good platform virus
writers.

No.

The very fact that Unix-like OSs have a
concept of a "root" account (which the
Windows "equivalent", "administrator", does
not even come CLOSE to matching in
terms of actual separation of permissions),
makes it all but invincible to virii.

Yes, if Linux becomes popular enough for virus
authors to target it, we'll see a round of
trojans using root exploits - But unlike
Windows exploits, very few of these exist to
start with, and they will (and do) get
fixed within a few hours of discovery.

Actually, for that reason, I think more Linux
virii would help Linux security overall,
as it would expose those root exploits faster
than we can discover them normally. Yeah, a
few boxes would suffer, but the community as
a whole would benefit.

Most of the arguments presented by the article can be dismissed once the lowest common denominator is taken into account. Your average *CONSUMER* does not like having computers being more complicated than they 'really need to be'.

If and when the so-called great Linux revolution occurs, distros will have to keep the needs of the average consumer in mind. Y'know, the people who outnumber your average slashdot reader in droves? Most of these people have no desire or need to really learn anything beyond what i

For us oldsters, who were around when Microsoft finally woke up to the significance of the internet, the security problems that M$ faces coincide with their desire for market dominance.

MS quickly created some powerful internet enabled applications. Outlook is the best example. In order to provide so many 'innovative' goodies and features they had to sacrifice security. Deep system hooks and then trying to justify their inclusion of Internet Explorer forced them to tie IE deeply to the system. A great example of short term profiteering at the cost of long term credibility.

Just my opinion. But I am 37 and my degree is in International Relations!

Isn't the fact that Windows's vulnerabilities are well known a product of its widespread use? I mean, this just sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

Not that it matters to those of us who never patch, no matter what OS you're running. I administer a Win2K based server that has remained stable because I patched it religiously and made sure that it was not easily compromised, and so far nothing has happened to it. (In fact, I had a "white hat" come in and try the usual round of exploits on the box, and none worked.)

OTOH, a friend of mine administering a Linux server was too busy bragging about his non-stop uptime to upgrade to a non-exploitable version of Apache and got his site defaced. Twice.

Isn't the fact that Windows's vulnerabilities are well known a product of its widespread use? I mean, this just sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

Nope. You should probably read the article. It explains the flaw in your logic. To save you some time, here are the relevant parts.........

We've all heard it many times when a new Microsoft virus comes out. In fact, I've heard it a couple of times this week already. Someone on a mailing list or discussion forum complains about the latest in a long line of Microsoft email viruses or worms and recommends others consider Mac OS X or Linux as a somewhat safer computing platform. In response, another person named, oh, let's call him "Bill," says, basically, "How ridiculous! The only reason Microsoft software is the target of so many viruses is because it is so widely used! Why, if Linux or Mac OS X was as popular as Windows, there would be just as many viruses written for those platforms!"

Of course, it's not just "regular folks" on mailing lists who share this opinion. Businesspeople have expressed similar attitudes... including ones who work for anti-virus companies. Jack Clarke, European product manager at McAfee, said, "So we will be seeing more Linux viruses as the OS becomes more common and popular."

Mr. Clarke is wrong.

AND THESE BULLITS....

**Windows software is either executable or not, depending on the file extension. So if a file ends with ".exe" or ".scr", it can be run as a program (yes, of course, if you change a text file's extension from ".txt" to ".exe", nothing will happen, because it's not magically an executable; I'm talking about real executable programs). It's easy to run executables in the Windows world, and users who get an email with a subject line like "Check out this wicked screensaver!" and an attachment, too often click on it without thinking first, and bang! we're off to the races and a new worm has taken over their systems.

**Microsoft's email software is able to infect a user's computer when they do something as innocuous as read an email! Don't believe me? Take a look at Microsoft Security Bulletins MS99-032, MS00-043, MS01-015, MS01-020, MS02-068, or MS03-023, for instance. Notice that's at least one for the last five years. And though Microsoft's latest versions of Outlook block most executable attachments by default, it's still possible to override those protections.

**Further, due to the strong separation between normal users and the privileged root user, our Linux user would have to be running as root to really do any damage to the system. He could damage his/home directory, but that's about it. So the above steps now become the following: read, save, become root, give executable permissions, run. The more steps, the less likely a virus infection becomes, and certainly the less likely a catastrophically spreading virus becomes.

Those are just a few points from the article. So the real issue has much less to do with market penetration and a lot more to do with Microsoft building an Operating system that seems to be meant to be insecure.

We designed the GNU system, from the outset in 1984, as a multi-user timesharing system with security features. An ordinary user cannot change the system software. Linux, Torvalds' 1991 kernel, followed this design as well.

We did not make the incredibly stupid decision to design
applications so that they execute programs that arrive in the mail.

Free software developers seem to do a better job, overall. (This is the point that the Open Source Movement primarily focuses on. For us in the Free Software Movement, this is a nice bonus, but please mention that freedom is even more important.)

GNU/Linux is less popular than Windows and most virus developers target the more common system.

If everyone switches to GNU/Linux, reason 4 will go away, but not the others. Therefore, people can expect to have much fewer virus problems in a world of GNU/Linux users than then have now with Windows.

The good folks at Red Hat have come up with a cool way to avoid some of the problems of monoculture in GNU/Linux: position independent executables. Addresses of code segments can be randomized at load time by the dynamic linker. The result is that common techniques for writing buffer overflow exploits no longer work, because every executable on every server is different. You can no longer insert code into a buffer whose length is not checked and then override the return address to point to it, because you don't know what return address to use. Worms can't spread if this technique is used.

While this technique still doesn't stop people from exploiting cross-site scripting bugs, it's
progress.

Luckily I've already responded to the author in person before this became/.ed.

As I've pointed out to the author, being just a "normal user" is enough to let the virus spread and to destroy the "normal" users documents.

I keep seeing this argument over and over again when talking about system stability. But my system would be next to useless if all my documents and configurations would be gone. Maybe it would be easier to recover from backup instead of a full reinstall, but that would be it.

Most pc's out there are single user (or single family) computers, instead of the old multi-user mainframes. All the important data are in reach of the virus.

Keep in mind that your losing all your files is a lot different than hosing the entire system. The virus that affected me (say from doing something silly like running an email attachment) does not affect other users of my system. (My wife and kids use my system too. Their data would remain secure.) Finally the *spread* of the virus would be hampered because the virus could only do what *I* can do, so binding arbritary ports, hijacking the web server, infecting critical system library components, is just not possible. The virus may still spread, but it is limited as to the infection vectors available to it.

... that having your/home directory trashed and losing all your settings on a single-user, *nix-based machine is just as bad as having to format/reinstall your MS OS. (This is for home/personal use - any large, competent business should have a recent ghost image ready to go and a backup solution for user data.)

This sort of social engineering, so easy to accomplish in Windows, requires far more steps and far greater effort on the part of the Linux user. Instead of just reading an email (... just reading an email?!?), a Linux user would have to read the email, save the attachment, give the attachment executable permissions, and then run the executable. Even as less sophisticated users begin to migrate to Linux, they may not understand exactly why they can't just execute attachments, but they will still have to go t

Seems the author misses the very obvious point that many of the weaknesses in Windows are there for user-friendliness. Making it easier for users to open attachments & see HTML mail is practically a requirement for the great mass of users. Yes, they're clueless, and yes, it would be nice if they could get over their fear of slightly more complex interfaces. But it ain't gonna happen.

Yes, if Linux _in its current form_ was as common as Windows, it would be be much more secure. But we might as well wish for green eggs & ham... Linux in its current form will never be as popular precisely BECAUSE of those same limitations. It's practically a tautology that any popular operating system, in order to become popular, must make compromises that make worms inevitable.

... that Microsoft's vulnerability-prone. However, I'm not so quick to accept this guy's suggestion. Viruses are only successful to the author of them if they cause a lot of mischief. Why target a handful of Linux or Mac boxes when you've got a common base many many times larger?

This guy is right that Windows security sucks, but it's ignorant to dispute that the sheer number of Windows machines out there makes it an attractive target. Look towards Blaster if you don't believe me.

One of the things that makes Linux a poor target for virus writers is an almost bewildering array of platforms, kernels and architectures. System binaries are often in different places even on the same distribution, depending on whether you are using package management or compiling source and sometimes run as different users.

I've seen about 5 diffenent schemes for laying out apache on the disk and i bet theres tonnes more. and i've seen some old solaris admins that move to linux feel the need to move im

You can't infect a normal system executable from a normal user on a normal UNIX-like system which, IIRC, is how most true viruses work on Windows. There are security holes; but then again, there are security holes in all software.

With the popularity of any OS, it is quike likely that you are going to get an increase in script-kiddies, etc using that OS and thus hacking at it.

Also, while you might get credence for hacking secure webservers... the major ones are fairly tight, and it might actually be easier to simply look up the hack-of-the-day and write an exploit. Even linux is vulnerable to this if they catch you before a patch. By hacking many windows boxen... said script kiddy can at least say "See all that, I did it! Look at h

Windows "out of the box" is as wide open as the goatse.cx guy. Linux by default usually has some tiny backdoors (say, unpassworded LILO) and is generally hard to break into. Now assume, breaking into the system using self-sustaining program (like virus - you deploy and it proceeds on its own, without "external help") is quite a bit harder than breaking in "manually" (i.e. trying diferent exploits, snooping, spoofing etc). If Linux is so much harder to break in manually, it's just as much harder to spread viruses.Plus the "flavour" factor. If there were as many as different "windows distributions" and windows was as customizable as Linux, the viruses would have much harder time to find "exploitable system".Now, when we are past the political differences, we may consider how "technically" harder is it to write Linux viruses.

While poor programming may lead to holes, it is only widespread use (and frequency of use) that brings these holes to the surface. There are all sorts of holes found in Linux, BSD's, many open source software, etc, and considering their user base is much smaller, one could venture and say the products put out by microsoft are actually *safer* than open source. Think about it!

It is clear the author of this twaddle has never worked with the masses supporting any type of computer system. If he had, he would know that explaining the steps to open an email attachment and giving it executable permissions to 80% of end users would be like teaching a dog to drive. I get the same blank stares from my "charges" every day while explaining the most rudementary computer related tasks. If I hear "I am not a compter person" one more fricking time, I am going to go on a 5 state killing spree!!

Once anything has root access, it's tough to stop it from making a great many changes to a system, and worming into other systems with the same vulnerability.

This isn't very different at all from the Windows viruses, where almost everything runs with admin access.

I'd say that Linux is a VERY tempting target on the server front, it's just that those systems aren't only under a more watchful eye than the common workstation, they're also usually locked down more tightly out of paranoia.

Now that Win2000/XP has a "Run As" feature built in, home users really shouldn't have default admin access anyway, so it's more of an issue of defaults than anything else.

This is, of course, coming as long-time Linux admin/Windows PC owner/current Mac OS X user. I've seen all three platforms, and Windows isn't really that bad if you just a) set it up properly, and b) train the users. Perhaps if Microsoft actually made a point of enabling privilege separation out of the box, it wouldn't have all these problems. Of course, this is exactly what's wrong with Lindows, ironically enough. It's engineered just fine, it's just not set up right.

The number of viruses doesn't map directly to "OS is safer." There are lots of factors, like motivation to create malware, and ease of injection that come into play, and ease of injection is an application issue more than it is an OS issue. Small modifications to the most popular mail application on each platform would have more effect (discounting worms) than anything else outside of motivation of malware authors.

Secondly, the author obviously lacks clue- modern Windows OS' do *not* execute files based on file type, its a combination of reading the first N bytes of the file, and file type. Rename any.exe to anything else and click on it on a Windows host.

If you have to go back 4 years to get security bulletin examples, it's because you don't have sufficient information- there are ~30 unpatched IE vulnerabilites that affect IE and Outlook that are public, and another ~20 that aren't. You don't have to go back to 1999 to find examples of why the platform is seriously hosed.

It's also too bad the author doesn't address rootkits, because it's important to give some overall malware pictures to show that everything isn't rosy on either side of the fence.

*nix is definitely in a better default state, but it's not the OS that makes that possible (heck, NTFS has filesystem attributes that could likely help.) It's too bad someone with a better understanding of the issues didn't write this article, there are too many holes for serious *doze admins to poke in this one to make it worth passing around.

[Addressing exec-shield and worms would have given a really good argument for Linux, for instance.]

I do wish I could get a good, clear, Linux-favoring argument on the security level (or any other level for that matter). I really am concerned about personal zealotry and the less I come off as a Penguinoid, the more believable/convincing I would be.

The premises of his entire argument are not very sound. He talks about how Linux is safer because it is difficult to run an attachment without knowing how to save it / set execute permissions, and how you can 'only screw up your/home directory' since you don't run as root.

_Really_ think about this one. In order for Linux to become as popular and intuitive [shiver] as Windows, things like "setting execute permissions" need to be automatic. Installing apps should be relatively simple as well. Look at Lindows! You run as root. Tie that in with a couple of "intuitive" features in a mail client, and you have a handful of rootkit'ed machines.

Plus, what if everyone magically rolled to Redhat 7.3 when it came out, ditching Windows all together? Since then, we've had two SSH vulnerabilities. Sure, those using Linux applied the necessary patches / updates and we're all safe again... probably within minutes.

But "Regular User Guy" won't apply that patch. Multiply that by a million users. Now you have millions of machines out there running a rootable linux box.

OSes will have vulnerabilities. They need to be patched. It ALWAYS comes down to the user. Will Linux be 'safer' than Windows (i.e. less vulnerabilities / worms)? Possibly. But it certainly has nothing to do with its difficulty to become root or inconveniences of a mail application.

Your argument falls apart easily. One just has to look at Mac OS X. Here's a UNIX variant (BSD nevertheless...) that is easier to use than Windows.

Ease of use is important but then so is intelligent design. Windows arguably has the former , Linux the latter, but OS X seems to get it right on both counts.

Windows problems are not limited to poor kernel design (extraneous graphics routines and such are included in the kernel, bad bad bad...) but also extend to the usability front. Cryptic error messages and

In order for Linux to become as popular and intuitive [shiver] as Windows, things like "setting execute permissions" need to be automatic. Installing apps should be relatively simple as well.

An email client is not a program installer. That is what apt/up2date/whatever, and their various GUI front-ends, are for. Those do set execute permissions, among other important functionality (like handling dependencies) that does not belong in an email client.

OSes will have vulnerabilities. They need to be patched. It ALWAYS comes down to the user.

Plus, what if everyone magically rolled to Redhat 7.3 when it came out, ditching Windows all together? Since then, we've had two SSH vulnerabilities. Sure, those using Linux applied the necessary patches / updates and we're all safe again... probably within minutes. But "Regular User Guy" won't apply that patch.

Every install of RedHat I've ever done sure as hell doesn't install and run an SSH daemon by default. And if you turn it on, you can turn it off.

I don't like the way he keeps mentioning OS X in the same breath as Linux, but neglects to point out the differences.

OS X was designed from the beginning as a desktop OS, and the designers have taken these issues into account. For one thing, the root account is disabled. It is not trivial to enable the root account, and it isn't even necessary.

Secondly, even though OS X ships with a standard mail client it's a good mail client. It can't run applications or scripts with a single click, HTML email is limited to display, no JavaScript can run, and plug-ins don't work.

I wonder if Apple should thank Microsoft for setting such a bad example!

For one thing, the root account is disabled. It is not trivial to enable the root account, and it isn't even necessary.

On the other hand, he doesn't mention that all you have to do is convince someone to enter their Administrator password, and all hell can break loose. I would say you are far more likely to sucessfully socially engineer someone to do that (Check out this wicked screen-saver; you just need to enter your administrator password to install it (a common install procedure)) than to get a *NIX

While I agree with the gist of his article, there are a couple of obvious problems:

Further, due to the strong community around Linux, new users will receive education and encouragement in areas such as email security that are currently lacking in the Windows world

That's unlikely. As Linux takes over corporate desktops, the users are not going to be joining LUG's or mailing lists. This has been mostly true up to this point, but mass acceptance will change the demographic of the user community to be more like that of Windows.

Further, due to the strong separation between normal users and the privileged root user, our Linux user would have to be running as root to really do any damage to the system. He could damage his/home directory, but that's about it.

It's mind-boggling that this stupid line of reasoning is still used. First, my home directory is the part of the system that I'm most concerned about protecting. Holy shit! That's where my files are. The rest of the OS can be downloaded off the internet or from any CD that I have. But what about the files that I have created? A program destroying my home directory is a far larger problem than a program that mucks up executables or something.

Second, the modern worm/virus on Windows doesn't need any elevated privileges. The whole point is to spread, and there is absolutely nothing about that process that needs or uses any elevated privileges. Being root is not terribly relevant for the modern worm.

With all the lost money and productivity over the last decade caused by countless Microsoft-borne viruses and worms, you'd think the company could have changed its procedures in this area, but no.

And it wouldn't have made a damned bit of difference for the most destructive email worms. Is the author from another planet? I have to wonder.

That's only true for systems with 1 user. Most home computers are family computers, used by you, your wife, your kids, etc. If a virus wipes out my home directory, at least my parents' homes won't be wiped. In Windows on the other hand, *everything* will be wiped.

"I'd rather wipe out my system, and not touch/home than the other way around"

Not possible. Either your system *and* home directory is wiped, or your home directory only.What would you prefer:1. A full system install *and* data restore.2. Only data restore.

Here's [virusbtn.com] an interesting rebuttal. The 1st line is "The single biggest security issue facing Linux users at the moment is the misconception perpetuated by highly vocal advocates that Linux is somehow impenetrable to security-based attacks, and in particular, viruses and other malware."

A very interesting article, but the author leaves out one very important point: the difficulty of writing a virus for Linux is much higher than writing one for Windows, so fewer people will do it. It takes much greater skill and effort to screw up a UNIX-based system than a winodws system because of the much clearer distinction between user files and system files. Today, a large percentage of Windows viruses are just slight modifications of others, and there even exist "virus toolkits" to generate viruses without much technical knowledge at all. In short, the "script kiddie" factor of relatively clueless people whipping up viruses based on a few instructions received in IRC is much less under UNIX.

The author does point out, quite correctly, that even if Linux viruses became more widespread, most of them would probably only affect the user space and not currupt the system itself.

I'm not sure if this is a troll or not, but Linux is indeed UNIX-based. It is "inspired by" UNIX (as opposed to having code in common).

Linux uses all of the old UNIX concepts of fork(), inodes, etc. For non-UNIX inspired systems, see OS/400, VMS, etc. These do not have UNIX primatives.

As a Linux user, I am proud that Linux is a UNIX derived (at least in spirit) system. It has a base of history, knowledge and experience from which to build. Would starting purely from scratch be better? I hardly think so.

I learned UNIX programming on SunOS. My SunOS knowledge works just fine on Linux (although not on OS/400 and hardly on Windows... unless you count what little POSIX compliance they barely put in).

As a Linux user, I am proud that Linux is a UNIX derived (at least in spirit) system. It has a base of history, knowledge and experience from which to build. Would starting purely from scratch be better? I hardly think so.

Now if you could remit to SCO $699.00 we would appreciate it.... Darl McBride

POSIX is an API. When we say "UNIX" we generally refer to the POSIX API. An API's whole point is to abstract the particulars of an implementation. For example, Perl actually implements fork on windows through the use of independent interpreters runing in a threaded environment. Java, also is an API which facilitates things like graphics and asynchronous file access (strangely similar to UNIX IO selection btw).

Did you read the article. (I know you didn't, just wanted to ask in a nice way).

unix based systems run many more daemons that are inherently more vunerable than microsoft products.

Proof? Most daemons nowadays are running as non-priviledged users or are explicitly chroot to prevent standard abuse. The only easy exploits are buffer overflow and those will only work on similar architectures and kernel versions. I'm not sure it's even technically feasible to write a virus that even comes close to spreadi

One of the things the author touches on, but fails to grasp fully, is that, part of the reason Linux is not now, and won't be for some time, adopted by Joe Sixpack, is that it is a complex PITA to install and run stuff on. Average people like simple. They want to get an email from George down the hall, with an attachment, click on it and have it run. If this means that they have to login as root all the time, and just give everything execute permissions, they will. The author recognizes that most of the problems exist between the chair and the keyboard, but then gives some nebulous, hand wavy, excuse that, if the world ran Linux, people would be better educated. Bullshit. People are going to be just as lazy, and just as ignorant about computers as they are now, they are going to do those dumb things that get them in trouble now, no matter which OS they are running. Even the added complexity will give way eventually. Someone will realize that they can make money selling a version of Linux that is "easy to use". And people will buy it, because they don't want to deal with the hassle. While I realize this is anethma to the/. crowd, most people don't care about the ability to modify the kernel if they want to (they don't!). They just want that 'puter thingy to show them the screen saver their friend sent them, and if they have to choose between a really secure OS, and one that just does it, they will pick the one that just does it. They will install programs that allow them to just run executables in an email, hell most of them will probably install a mail client that automatically launches executables if they think it will make things even eaiser on them. Face it, most people are scared of computers, and if they have to do anything more complex than launch OE and solitare, they are lost, and the author expects them to change, why? Because the Linux advocates will teach them better, he says this while ignoring the fact that many of us who deal with Windows on a daily basis have been trying rather hard to get people to lock up their Windows boxes a little better, without any success. Heck, my own girlfriend bitches about Mozilla on my machine, because it actually does things like block cookies, pop-ups, and java-script, unless you tell it otherwise. And she's probably a bit better about computers than the average person. Sure, the viruses will be different if/when Linux takes over the desktop (and establishes its own monoculture, probably be either RH or Lindows), but there will always be a security hole in the chair/keyboard interface.

Hard to run executable attachments being a lack-of-feature: no, it IS a feature. 99% of the Windows malware going around depends on users unwittingly running executable attachments. Making it easy for Linux users to suffer the same fate is NOT a feature, and in particular not a desirable one.

Application vs. OS: MS itself is the one that integrated the HTML component into the core OS. And they can't fix it, because things like Windows Help also use that component. If you fix the behavior for e-mail, you bre

MacOS Classic didn't have so much in the way of automated scripting tapping deeply into system tasks. Hell, even Applescript pretty much needed applications to be written especially to handle scripting events.

MacOS Classic didn't have so much in the way of auto-execute, auto-run etc. stuff- compare that to Windows. MacOS did copy one feature from Windows: auto-running programs on insertion of a CD, for ease of use. MacOS got a well-known worm, one of the 40 or so that have been recorded in Mac history, called the Autostart worm. There was also a way to stop it: turn off auto-start in the Quicktime control panel. And MacOS didn't go around turning it back on for you, either.

Most Mac-capable viruses are exclusively Microsoft software viruses for the simple reason that most are Office macro viruses.

The article author has a point. Leave the OS sitting there like a lump rather than scampering about trying to convince you that it's intelligent and friendly, and you don't get the viruses. Viruses REQUIRE a degree of autonomy from the OS. Even the example of how you could edit login.rc files on Linux take advantage of a degree of autonomy present in the OS, that auto-runs common programs to save you the trouble. If you logged in and manually typed everything in initrc every time, not even a user-space virus could auto-run, even if you'd run it yourself and infected your linux box. It requires the autonomy of an OS that's doing trusted stuff.

Old MacOS has very little of that, and as a result can be incredibly reliable IF you have it in a condition that's not bugladen: too many extensions and microsoft programs that run OS-level support code at all times, and you're hosed.

Even then, the coding culture of old MacOS was to let the user totally run the show. Not so many labor saving devices- not so many vectors for hostile code to work. It's that simple.

i wonder what the commercial applications/implications of this are? any takers?

I suspect that the commercial implications are minimal at least for a year or three. For a start, a lot of IT decision makers, i.e. accountants and people who have been promoted from middle management with little technical ability will still swallow MS's bullshit. They will also buy Server 2003, optimistically believing that it will be cure all the problems of Server 2000 in the same way they believed 2000 would cure the problems of NT.

For an example cop this survey [theregister.co.uk]. It apparently shows that Europe's IT directors place consistency higher than security and reliability and the human tendency to submit to fear and one's own insecurity rather than to break ranks and try something new will lead a lot of people who have no real faith in their own abilites to stick with what they know, i.e. Windows, regardless of how shit it may be, how many viruses it catches, how many customer's credit card numbers get stolen etc.. They crave stability even if what they have is flawed, at least they know where the buttons are.

In all honesty, I don't see single OS networks as being a good idea regardless of what your using. There are millions of lines of code in a modern OS and it only takes one cock-up to open a crack through which it can be broken. A lesson in genetics suggests that diversity gives you the best hope of survival when under attack or it can at least slow the attacker as they, or their virus, try to find vulnerabilties in each system.The only way that will be achieved is by opening file formats so that all platforms can exchange data with 100% transparency. This will also create a truly free market causing companies to develop software based on quality, performance, security and reliabilty rather than how pretty the GUI is and how clever this years bunch of graduate marketing twats are. The obvious side effect is the breaking of MS's monopoly and the burgeoning of a new software market that will develop ports and alternatives to existing "industry standard" stuff like AutoCad. Proprietry software companies fear this the most as they will then have to wrestle with real competition.

I still think that Linux, BSD and Mac are inherently more secure and better coded than Windows though. I also suspect the rot is so deeply set into MS stuff (with a 20 year legacy of putty eye candy before security) that they will never sort it out without a ground up rewrite, somthing they will not do unless forced to.

Linux developers on the other hand have given a security a starring role since day one and even though there are bound to be flaws they're fixed in short time by developers who don't spend the first week denying a problem exists. It's free, it does what I need and it's users give a shit. What more can I ask for.

It's undeniable that people that don't like having to learn new things and certainly don't like to have to enter root passwords and get their hands dirty. I mean hell, the joke about getting your 7 year old kids to teach adults how to program the VCR is funny purely because so many people can relate to it.

While the workings of consumer electronics can be made transparent to end users, computers are a different entity all together.

My original point is based on the problem that a lot of IT decisions are mad